Automated processes, such as chemical, biological, or industrial processes, often involve the use, processing, and/or manipulation of fluid solutions and/or fluid suspensions. Typically, such fluid solutions and suspensions are contained in a plurality of containers, often of various sizes, that must be made accessible to modules of a multi-module instrument for performing such automated processes. In addition, it is often necessary for an operator to provide new, full containers to such an instrument and to remove used, empty containers from the instrument. Thus, it is often necessary in such automated processes to move multiple containers of various sizes to different positions that are accessible to different modules, and/or it is necessary to move different bottles, one-at-a-time, to a single location that is accessible to a particular module.
For example, in a processing instrument that includes a robotic pipettor for aspirating fluids from and/or dispensing fluids into containers, there may be a single location at which fluid containers are accessible to the pipettor, either due to limitations in the movement of the pipettor or due to the fact that other locations are occupied by other modules. It may also be necessary to move bottles from a position at which an operator provides bottles to the instrument to a position within the instrument or to move empty bottles from a position within the instrument to a position where the empty containers can be removed by the operator. Thus, an apparatus is required to move fluid containers from one location within the instrument to one or more other locations within the instrument.
Furthermore, fluid solutions or suspensions must be mixed to maintain the solute in solution or to maintain material, e.g., solid or semi-solid particles, in suspension. Mixing is often effected by agitating the container to mix the fluid solution or fluid suspension contents of the container. Thus, an apparatus is required to agitate the fluid containers. The frequency of mixing required will depend on the nature of the solution or suspension; some solutions or suspensions will require only infrequent mixing while other solutions or suspensions will require constant or nearly constant mixing.
For example, in many nucleic acid diagnostic tests, in which a goal of the test is to identify the presence and/or amount of a nucleic acid of interest, it is well known to use a probe that will hybridize to the nucleic acid of interest and emit, under specified conditions, a detectable signal so as to indicate the presence or, depending on the strength of the signal, the amount of the target nucleic acid that is present in a sample.
Before or after exposing the target nucleic acid to a probe, in certain assays the target nucleic acid can be immobilized by target-capture means, either directly or indirectly, using a “capture probe” bound to a substrate, such as a magnetic bead, or particle. When magnetic beads comprise capture probes, magnets in close proximity to the reaction vessel are used to draw and hold the magnetic beads within a specified area in the vessel, or in a fluid transfer apparatus.
Such target capture probes are provided in the form of fluid suspension. A robotic pipettor aspirates a specified amount of the probe from a container positioned in a location that is accessible to the pipettor and the probe is transported to and dispensed into a receptacle vessel that contains, or will contain, other process materials, including sample material. At times during which the pipettor need not access the container, the container should be agitated to maintain the magnetic particles of the probe in suspension if additional aliquots of the fluid suspension are required.
In an instrument for performing automated processes that includes multiple processing modules, it is typically desirable that the instrument occupy as compact a space as possible, and it is indispensable that the various modules be configured and arranged to operate without interfering with each other. Due to space limitations, therefore, it may not be practical to accommodate separate apparatuses for moving and agitating fluid containers. Moreover, if frequent agitation of a container is required to maintain the fluid in solution or suspension, it may be impractical to move containers back and forth between apparatuses for moving the container and agitating the container. Thus, an ideal fluid handling module for an instrument for performing automated processes supports the combined functionalities of moving containers to one or more specified locations within the instrument and agitating the containers in a compact and space-efficient platform.